My wife tells me I need to stop giving people the finger or someday someone will go nuts on me. She really doesn't like it when I flick someone off while she's driving. I figure, she's busy with the driving, so I can take care of the extracurricular stuff for her. I've mellowed since I was a teenager. I used to have an old Porsche, which was a cool car but slow to accelerate. So, people behind me would get annoyed with my slow acceleration and try to pass me. That would annoy me, because I knew I'd be driving faster than everyone else if they'd just give me a couple more seconds, so sometimes I'd jockey my position to make it as hard on the annoyed driver as possible. Then, when my point was made, I'd speed on up to 90. One thing that really annoys me is people who honk at you the moment the light turns green, or perhaps the moment before because they were watching the cross-traffic lights. They are in such a hurry, they can't afford to give you the benefit of the doubt and see if you'll be prompt out of the starting gate. A guy did that to me once recently on Westheimer, so I took my foot off the gas and braked again, letting all the traffic flow around me. The guy started honking and cussing at me. I was watching him yelling through my rearview as I crawled through the intersection. Finally, he managed to change lanes, so I stepped on the gas, put my hand out of the car to give him the finger, and sped past all the traffic. Now, he's really mad and changes back into my lane and follows me. I make a turn; so he cuts off a pickup to follow me in that turn. Then I turn into the parking lot of my office. I know he's itching for a chance to confront me, but he stops at the entrance and just cusses at me from the street. I've wondered why he thought he had the time to pester me when he had been in such a hurry to get through that light. That's the closest I've gotten to road rage so far. But, I'm not done annoying people. This afternoon, I think I'll go slow in the fast lane.
But sometimes there is no space to cut in. So you sit there with your blinker on, like the moron that you are, creating a whole lane of traffic while making mine worse. You just make the traffic worse as a whole, a whole. Thanks. Cops need to monitor this during times of traffic.
One of these days, when I'm out of debt and don't have to worry too much about possible costs, I'm gonna make the traffic a lot longer at one of those places. Hope bigtexxx and drapg have good insurance.
Pet peeves of other drivers that really annoy me: 1) People who think they don't need to use a turn signal, just braking will do (this caused an accident for me about 5 years ago). 2) People who have no concept of the fast lane and stay in it the whole time even after I pass them in the right lane and then whip back in front of them. 3) People who take too long to turn or put their turn signal on too early, like half a mile or so before the actual turn. 4) People who pull out in front of me when there is no one in sight behind me and THEN have the nerve to do like 30 or some other piddling speed. These scum should be eradicated from the earth.
You shouldn't be following so close. Sometimes when I have my cell phone in my left hand, I can't physically turn on the blinker to signal.
As long as that never happens to you, or when it does, you simply move on, then you're OK. BTW, it's also hard sometimes to set your tallboy down and ash your cigarrette before turning on the blinker as well. Manny should appreciate that and give us a break. Just kidding, I dun like that either Manny.
I think every state should outlaw using cellphone and driving at the same time. I have had a few close calls in the last few years and almost everytime it was because the other guy was using a cellphone and not paying attention to the situation on the road.
If you're an aggressive driver (and not an Andretti), you probably don't know what' you're doing. The best driving advice I ever received was to assume that everyone else on the road is an idiot.
My road rage turns into a type of road vigilante justice type thing. I don't get that mad at people just going slow, or anything, but people like drap, and bigtexxx who think they are better than the rules. I'd rather people run off the road or crash. I figure that is a good way to teach them a lesson. My wife can't stand it, but those people shouldn't be breaking the rules of the road. The funniest thing I've ever done, and I've done it twice, was get right beside them, and then when they speed up or slow down to get in the lane, I speed up and slow down as well. I just stay beside them, and they never got in. Twice the cars had to stop to slam on their brakes to avoid hitting the wall that was closing their lane out. At that point there was no real room for them to operate, and they had to wait a long time to ever get back in. I did it a third time, and looked over to see a man who was confused, and could have possibly been new to the country. I felt bad for that guy because he wasn't doing it out of arrogance, just ignorance. I hate when two lanes are turning, and the cars from one lane will turn into the other lane. I also hate in post ball game situations when the common courtesy is to let a car from one line go, and then a car from another line go, and alternate, but everyonce in a while an extra car will try and squeeze in.
I was just rudely reminded of one today. In fairly heavy traffic at 5:40, I exited the first exit after the 59/610 interchange going south on 610. I was planning on getting over all the way to the right hand lane to take a turn at the light, had my blinker on, and some ********** exiting behind me thought his time was more valuable than mine sped out from behind me to get in that lane. As I was already getting over, I noticed the muther****er and slammed on my breaks only to rear end a pregnant woman as the ********** drove off. Luckily, there was no damage to her car other than a scratch, but I now have a big hole in my bumper and feel horrible about rear ending a pregnant woman. She said her neck hurt, but that she was going to go home and take some Tylenol because she was sure it wasn't a big deal. She was an RN, so I think I'll get lucky on that end as well. I hope the driver in that jeep gets pubic lice and has his dick rot off. Sorry, I'm just pissed that because of some inconsiderate ******* I had to ****ing rearend a pregnant lady. Carry on.
This will probably p*ss people off...but anyway... Road rage is a load of crap. Before the phrase "Road Rage" existed people that acted like morons when driving from A to B were called morons. But then someone decided to call it "Road Rage" and now everyone is allowed to be excused for being a complete ****ing idiot when they drive a care.
I get moderate road rage and get that vigilante feeling to exact some road karma, but I never had the feeling to track someone down and kill him. If you're not in an accident, admitting that you're possibly wrong will diffuse a stupid situation and return to the goal you originally had, getting to your destination. Most likely you won't see the jackass again unless the both of you lands in court.
everyone gets road rage... my thing is.... USE YOUR FRIGGIN TURNING SIGNALS IF YOUR GONNA DRIVE LIKE A FOOL!!! atleast i know your gonna cut me off.
RM95, Sorry to hear that - stuff like that really pisses me off, so I can only imagine how mad you are (or were). I am glad you are okay and it looks like (hopefully) you won't get the old "I got whiplash" because you rearended me deal.
Yesterday, at 8:00 pm, I was driving to drop off my son with the ex. I was in the left lane and a carful of teens pulls into the middle turning lane and passes me. When I saw himn start this bonehead move, I got REALLY pissed off, but I had my son with me and decided against accelerating to keep him from passing me. It would've been a snap...I was in my Stang. I stayed behind him (not tailgating, regular driving), and they turned off on the road before my exes. I made a mental note and kept driving. After I dropped him off, I took a side road down where the punks turned and found their car...I pulled up beside the empty car and so many ideas popped into my head...a crowbar through his window, popping the tire, kicking in the door panel, or simply calling in the cops so the underage punks couldn't drive the car back. I decided to just drive off and avoid the trouble. Now, if their reckless driving had caused something to happen to my son, that car would not be driveable. Is this a form of subdued road rage?
As long as you basically never follow other cars closely, and change lanes often to keep open space around your vehicle, you should rarely have issues on the road, as you will have more options in case a poor driver comes near you. Also, try to envision what lane you need to be in 1-2 miles before your exit, unless you're good at changing lanes quickly. Another thing that people make the mistake of doing is driving in the right lane too much, especially on freeways in spots where other cars tend to need to merge into, such as near the Bellaire exit off of 59 south. Failure to stay out of the right line in those situations is a major cause of traffic jams. Other people compound this problem by failing to merge properly, rarely using proper acceleration. The main thing that causes people to drive poorly is their inability to plan ahead and adjust to the situation they're in, bottom line.
I've had enough tickets (2) in the past few years and have had to sit through two on-line defensive driving course. If I've learned one thing is it stupid to drive like an ass and be aggressive on the road. Sure, I get pissed when people do stupid things, but I'm not going to react in such a way to get me shot or put my car with me, my wife and kids in danger. It's just not worth it. Something that does piss me off: pricks who drive on the shoulder passing every car. I often pray they run over nails, crash into a sign or get caught by a cop.
One nice thing about living where it snows, every idiot who thinks he's God in a 4X4 usually winds up in the ditch as a result of being stupid. One day last winter driving the 40 miles between Anchorage and Palmer in a heavy snowstorm there were 11 trucks in the median between lanes on the freeway. It does provide a nice level of redemption. In my 10 years of driving a Ford F250, I can assure you that 4x4 helps you get going, but it sure as hell won't let you stop faster. Oh, and speaking of road rage, last week driving down a four lane street with a center turn lane, some kid in one of those Civics that sound like a juiced up lawnmower actually used the center turn lane to pass me. I smiled smugly, secure in the knowledge that my truck could crush his dinky little car into a tuna fish can if I so desired.
